“Yes ma’am, that’s me, just plain old Drover.”
“Oh, my.” She giggled. “You’re about the cutest little thang I ever saw.”
Drover’s eyes popped open. “Me? I’ll be derned. Hank, did you hear that?”
I gave him a withering glare. “I think it’s time for you to patrol the chicken house.”
Trudy heard this. “You do patrol work?”
Drover grinned and started wig-wagging his stub tail. “Oh yeah, all the time.” He gave me a grin and came over to the pickup.
I cleared my throat. “About that song of mine, Miss Trudy . . .”
They ignored me, both of them, just as though . . . I couldn’t believe it. Drover walked right in front of me and started talking to her.
“Yes ma’am, I do patrol work all the time.”
She fluffed up her ears. “Oh, how interesting!”
“Yeah, when we have stuff that’s really dangerous, Hank lets me do it.”
Her eyes glistened. “Honest? How daring! Don’t you ever get scared? I mean, what about dark nights?”
Drover puffed himself up. “You know what, Miss Trudy? The darker the night, the better I like it. Sometimes during the day, I get bored and I just wish the night would come—black dark night with no moon.”
“Oh, this is so interesting! What about coyotes? Do you ever see coyotes at night?”
“You bet. When they get too close to the house, I go out and . . . beat ’em up.”
She gasped and looked at me. “Does he really?”
“Ha! Are you kidding? Miss Trudy, I must warn you . . .”
She turned back to Drover. “Oh, this is just . . . Well, what about thunderstorms, Drover? They just scare me to death.”
“Not me. I bark ’em away. And I bark at the mail truck, too. And you know what, Miss Trudy? Last night I caught a Laundry Monster in the yard—and I whipped him.”
On hearing this, the brainless Miss Trudy went into such a swoon, she almost fell out of the pickup. Fortunately, the men had finished unloading the horse feed by then and Joe Don was ready to go back to town. Otherwise, we would have been forced to listen to more of this shameless rubbish.
As Joe Don pulled away, Miss Trudy rushed to the back of the pickup and waved good-bye to her . . . whatever he was. Her new windbag boyfriend.
“Bye-bye, Drovie. I think I love you!”
Drovie? Oh, brother.
When they were gone, Drover heaved a sigh. “Gosh, that’s the cutest lady dog I ever met.”
I glared at him. “Drover, she’s uglier than mud. Did you see that nose?”
“Yeah, I loved it!”
“She’s obviously a Pekingese, and it’s common knowledge that Pekingese have a pushed-in pug nose that is anything but cute.”
“No, I think she was a cocker spaniel, and they have the prettiest ears in the world.”
“A cocker spaniel? Are you nuts? Drover, anyone with eyes could see . . .”
I heard a clunk and turned around. Drover had fainted and that was the end of the conversation. It was just as well. The runt had obviously made a complete fool of himself over an ugly Pekingese dog, and I could feel nothing but pity for him.
Well, the blind, unbalanced, tasteless Miss Trudy had come and gone. Her presence on the ranch had lit a brief spark of meaning in the black hole of Drover’s life, but now it was time for us to get back to work.
As the dust cloud left by the pickup settled, Slim came out of the feed barn and latched the door. “Hank, come here.”
Upon hearing my name, I snapped to attention, left the fantasy world of Drover’s childish follyrot, and trotted over to Slim’s side. I had a feeling that I had been summoned, not for social reasons, but for a matter of great importance. I was right.
“Hank, there’s a hundred bucks’ worth of horse feed in that barn. I’ve got a suspicion that them coons’ll be back tonight.”
Oh yes, the thieving, scoundrelous raccoons.
“It wouldn’t be funny if they got in there and tore up all them sacks, would it? I want you dogs to guard the feed. You hear?”
Yes sir! I was the right dog for that job. I had no use for raccoons and would be proud to protect our ranch’s supply of horse feed from the thieving rascals. As soon as darkness fell, I would be right there at the barn door, waiting for a foolish raccoon to show himself.
Slim went back to work, and guess who came rushing up at that very moment. Mister Love-Struck. Mister Keeee-Yooooot. Drover.
I shot him a hot glare. “Well, I see you made a miraculous recovery. I guess that tells us all we need to know about your so-called romance.”
“Yeah, it was pretty exciting.”
“It was superficial, Drover, and your behavior smacks of insincerity.” Suddenly he began smacking his lips. “Why are you doing that?”
“Well . . . I’m not sure.”
“I just said that your behavior smacks of insincerity, and you smacked your lips. Are you trying to be funny?”
“I don’t think so. I’m so much in love, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Then pay attention to me, because I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“Oh good. What are you doing?”
I glanced over both soldiers and lowered my voice to a whisker. “Drover, we have good reason to believe that those thieving coons will be back tonight.”
“You mean Eddy?”
“Exactly. Eddy and all his kinfolks. You see, Drover, after you abandoned me to the Laundry Monster last night, I followed Eddy to the feed barn. And . . . I caught him stealing horse feed.”
“Oh my gosh!”
“Shocking, isn’t it? And he’d eaten so much, he was as fat as a toad.” I noticed that Drover’s gaze went to my . . . well, to my midsection, you might say. “What are you staring at?”
“Oh, nothing. You look kind of . . . fat, is all. Almost as fat as a . . . toad.”
There was a long moment of silence, and the tension in the air between us grew very tensionous. Then I broke it with an easy chuckle. “Ha, ha. Oh, I get it now. I said that Eddy was as fat as a toad, and you noticed that I’m as fat as a toad, and from that you concluded . . . ha, ha . . . you actually thought that I ate the horse feed?”
“Well, I wondered.”
“Ha, ha.” I gave him a fatherly pat on the shoulder and eased him away from the, uh, feed barn. “Drover, I’m proud of you. That was an excellent piece of observation.”
“Gosh, thanks.”
“You’re learning to put your clues together. That’s good, but in this particular case, the clues are just a little deceiving.”
“They are?”
“Yes, for you see, there’s a missing piece to the puzzle.”
“I’ll be derned.”
“And for the sake of your education, I’ll reveal it to you.” We stopped. I looked over both shoulders and lowered my voice. “But you must promise never to breathe a word of it to anyone.” He nodded. “Drover, this morning at first light, I discovered a toad sitting near the yard fence. I hadn’t eaten in days and I was starving, so I . . .”
His eyes grew wide. “You ate a toad, and that’s why you look as fat as a toad!”
“Nice work, son, you figured it out.”
He was hopping up and down. “I couldn’t believe you ate horse feed with the raccoons.”
“No, it was just a toad, and that explains everything, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it all fits together, except . . .” His grin melted. “Why would you want to eat a nasty toad?”
“Drover, that is a great question, no kidding, but I’m afraid we’re out of time. We’ll save it for another occasion, for you see”—I ran my gaze over the western horizon, where the sun had just dropped behind a line of cottonwoods—“night is coming, and I guess you know what that means.”
“Right. We’ve got a job to do. Let’s move out.”
Whew. Having dodged that little bullet, I took a solemn oath to whip the stuffings out of the first raccoon who showed himself. And I hoped it would be Eddy. The little sneak.
When darkness fell, we were in position and ready to mount our defense of the feed barn. I was tense and ready for the battle to begin. If the raccoons were foolish enough to test our position, they would learn some bitter lessons about Ranch Law.
The minutes passed slowly, then stretched into hours. No one came. The hours stretched into more hours and . . . hmmm, I found myself drifting off to . . . well, not exactly drifting off to sleep, but edging toward a, uh, napping situation, shall we say.
I leaped to my feet and began doing exercises. “Drover, let’s talk. I’m getting sleepy.”
I heard him yawn. “Okay. What shall we talk about?”
“Anything. You pick the topic.”
“Oh good. You know, we never did find out if she was a Pekingese or a cocker spaniel.”
“Who? Oh, her. She was a Pekingese, Drover, and I wasted a perfectly good song on her too.”
“Yeah.” He yawned. “She sure was pretty.”
“She was ugly, and also not very smart.”
“Yeah, she had the prettiest eyes I ever saw.”
“Could we change the subject?”
“Well, sure, okay.” He yawned. “How come you ate that toad?”
“Toad? For your information, I’ve never . . . Oh, yes, the toad. I was hungry. What else can I tell you? Hunger drives us to irrational behavior.”
“Yeah, and so does love. The first time I saw her, I thought she was just an ugly little mutt, but then . . .” He yawned again.
“Will you please stop yawning? You’re liable to get me started . . .” I yawned. “There, see what you’ve done? Now I’m yawning. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves . . .” I yawned. Drover yawned. “Keep talking, Drover, but I don’t want to hear any more about your ugly girlfriend.”
“Okay.” He yawned. “Let’s see here. I think she loves me, and the snorker I mork, the snicker the pork chop.”
“That’s the donkiest thing I ever heard, Drivel. In the first plunk, murk wumple the pumpkin waffles.”
“Grasshoppers fly banana airplanes.”
“Yes, but lorkin murgle snork sniff.”
“Sniffle wiffle woebegone mufflers.”
“Zzzzzzzzzzzz.”
“Zzzzzzzzzz.”
Chapter Twelve: You’ll Never Guess the Ending
Okay, let’s skip to the bottom line. In spite of our best efforts to stay alert, at some point after midnight, the entire Security Division . . . uh . . . fell asleep. Or to put it another way, we finally succumbed to the crushing burden of protecting the ranch from dangerous forces, and the next thing we knew . . .
I heard a sound in the darkness. My head shot up and my ears went into Automatic Liftup. I shook the vaporous vapors out of my head and listened. There it was again.
A scratching sound. Whispers. Chuckles and giggles. The mysterious sounds were coming from . . . the feed barn.
I turned to my snoring, wheezing assistant. “Drover, wake up. This is it. The raccoons are here and I’m putting the whole ranch under Red Alert.”
His head came up and his eyes drifted open. “I thought you said the grasshoppers were flying banana airplanes.”
“No, I did not say that. I said the feeds are about to attack the raccoon barn. Now get up. We’re fixing to get ourselves into some combat here.” He tried to run away, but I caught him. “And this time, mister, you stay on the front line with me. We just might need all our troops for this one.”
“Darn.”
“What?”
“I said, ‘barn.’”
“That’s correct. At this very moment, they’re attempting to enter the barn. Now listen, here’s the plan. I’ll take the big one. You take the little ones.”
“What if they’re all big?”
“If they’re all big, I’ll take the biggest big one and you take the littler big ones.”
“Yeah, but you said . . .”
“Will you dry up? Just jump in there and bite somebody. And don’t forget, Drover, this is for the ranch.”
“You know what? I don’t think you ate a toad. I think you and Eddy ate the horse feed, and that’s how come you’re so fat.”
I stared at him with eyes of purest steel. “Drover, that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said in your whole life.”
“Yeah, but it’s true, isn’t it?”
“The fact that it contains a tiny particle of truth doesn’t change the fact that it was a dumb thing to say. But I’m going to forget you ever said it.”
“Thanks.”
“Now, let’s teach these little beggars a lesson they’ll never remember. A bold defense of the feed barn will save my reputation, and there might even be a little promotion in it for you.”
“Oh goodie. When do I get it?”
“Later. Saddle up, we’re moving out.”
And with that touching interlude behind us, we went creeping through the creepy darkness to engage the raccoons in deadly combat. Ten yards out, I started getting a red warning light on the Locator Panel. A quick glance at the VizRad scope (Visual Radar) told me that we had three cunning little Charlies (coons) standing near the barn door.
I switched over to our Emergency Radio Frequency. “Okay, Drover, we’ve got three Charlies dead ahead on course two-five-zirro-zirro. I’ll take Fatso. You take the others. Ready? We’re going in.” I abandoned my Stealthy Crouch and went streaking toward the enemies, with guns blazing. “Freeze, turkeys! You’re under arrest!”
Ha. You should have seen their faces. They were shocked beyond belief, scared out of their wits. The dummies had thought they had the place all to themselves, never dreaming that our Raccoon Recon Squad had been observing them for hours. Raccoons have the reputation of being pretty smart, but in a combat situation, they’re no match for a couple of high-dollar cowdogs.
You know what they did? They ran. Hey, I’d hoped we might get ourselves into a little scuffle, but these little twerps wanted none of us. They fled in sheer terror. I can’t be sure, but I think it was the “freeze, turkeys” that got ’em.
I fell in behind the big one. “Okay, Fatso, here’s what we think of feed-stealers and barn-wreckers!”
I jumped right onto the middle of his back, figured the weight of my enormous body would put him on the ground, but . . . well, fat guys don’t go down as easily as you might suppose, and he sort of gave me a piggyback ride . . . all the way down to the creek.
I was a little surprised, to tell you the truth, and all at once I found myself in a pool of water with this . . . you know, he’d looked fat and pudgy at a distance, soft and slow and not terribly threatening, but . . . well, after riding him down the creekbank and into the water, I began to see him in a different, uh, flame of reference.
He wasn’t fat, fellers, he was BIG. Maybe he had a roll of fat on the outer layer of his body, but mostly what he was was big. Stout. Muscular. Hard as twenty-five rocks. Oh, and he also had a real nasty personality. And a mouthful of teeth.
We were out there in the middle of this pool, see, a fairly deep pool of water. We were paddling around, and he was glaring at me and grinning an evil grin. Drover had come to the edge of the pool and was yipping his little head off.
“Git ’im, Hankie, git ’im! Frozen turkey! Frozen turkey!”
And this giant coon said to me, “Say, bud, you know how a raccoon drowns a dog?”
“Why no, I, uh, don’t know . . . about that.”
“First, he lures a dumb dog into a pool of water. You know why?”
And once again, I found myself puzzled. “No, this is all new
to me. Why?”
“On dry land, a dog can whip a raccoon. Guess who wins in the water.”
I ran that one through my data banks. I felt a jolt of electricity burning its way out to the end of my tail. I heard myself gulp. “Are you saying that, uh, coons are better swimmers?”
“Yeah.”
“And that in hand-to-hand combat in a pool of water, the raccoon might have a . . . uh . . . slight advantage?”
“Big advantage.”
“And that the raccoon might actually . . .” I hit right full rudder, went to Flank Speed on all engines, and headed for the nearest bank. “Drover, I don’t want to alarm you, but I’ve just decoded this guy’s secret message and it’s time for you to do something—fast!”
He jumped up and down and yipped louder than ever: “Frozen turkey! Frozen turkey!”
“Never mind the frozen turkey! Don’t you see what he’s fixing to do? If you don’t get yourself out here and do something to help, he’s going to drown me!”
That ruined him. “Oh my gosh, Hank, don’t let him do that!”
“Swim out here and help me, you little squeakbox, and maybe he won’t!”
“Yeah but . . . you know about me and water. And this old leg just went out on me.”
“Hurry up, do something, attack!”
“Okay, Hank, just hang on a little longer. I’ll run for help.”
“What? No, don’t run for help! Swim out here and . . .”
BLUB. GARGLE. BUBBLE. BLUBBER.
Uh-oh. Fellers, all at once I was in big trouble. The raccoon caught up with me, jumped on top of my head, and put me down where the fish live—and where dogs don’t.
Pretty scary, huh? You bet it was, but just then something happened. All of a sudden, the raccoon . . . well, released me. I floated to the surface, grabbed a gasp of air, and realized . . . hmmm . . . that someone or something was towing me across the pool. I mean, some unknown hero was pulling me through the water by one ear.
Did it hurt? Yes. Did I complain? No sir. By George, whoever that guy was, he could pull my ear any time he wanted.
I made it to the east bank, coughed some of the water out of my guzzle, and staggered to my feet. “Listen, pal, I don’t know who you are or why you happened to show up, but I sure am . . .”
The Secret Laundry Monster Files Page 7